Our conference in New York last week created quite a buzz. We had 1,578 attendees, two-thirds of whom watched via live streaming. I think that must be some sort of record.
In the spirit of the Internet, rather than trying to be one of those pompous “thought leaders,” I thought I’d let the attendees furnish the highlights. I’ve distilled more than 400 Twitter comments into a few dozen that seemed the most poignant. Their 140-character thought bubbles appeared as they listened to more than 50 presenters. (To see all of the comments, go to www.twitter.com and search #loac2011. To sort through them, add the speaker’s name or a topic after the hashtag, such as “#loac2011 Christensen,” “#loac2011 hyperlocal” or “#loac2011 mobile.”
I’ve classified them into four categories: Innovation & Media Strategy, Mobile, Hyperlocal, and Companies.
Innovation & Media Strategy
- “These traditional media panelists saying right things. I’m skeptical about their ability to execute and actually create change.”
- “Shelly Palmer: Nobody is going to get a raise by innovating. We get paid by making our numbers. At the heart of the local media prob.”
- “Even the most efficient dinosaur is still extinct: Prather”
- “There is no such thing as breaking news on the 5 o’clock news anymore. Somebody broke the news from an iPhone 4 hours ago: Bob Prather”
- “Recurring message: Digital media must have its own separate business unit to survive.”
- “Leveraging business models of past is foolish…need to understand the job to be done and build new ones…Clay Christensen.”
- “Business models evolve; business units don’t: Clay Christensen.”
- “Big companies survive biz disruption by setting up a separate biz unit, giving it a charter to kill the parent.”
- “Convergence is difficult to implement at best, and in a lot of ways a myth: Gordon Borrell”
- “Promotions now disrupting advertising according to Borrell. Represent 59.7% of all marketing dollars today.”
- “Distuptive innovations: Big guys more toward highest profit. Little guys nibble at the niches until there is no whole piece left.”
- “Today’s consumer really doesn’t care about the media company. They just get what they want and move on.”
- “Media is becoming a platform for specific audiences, not just content aggregated and pushed out for all to sort through.”
- “Powerful point: Shelly Palmer said you don’t need a website, you need a database.”
- “Love this line from Shelly Palmer: Kids consider email a formal letter.”
Mobile
- “Check-ins are very low on the mobile totem pole.”
- “Almost half of all mobile phone/Internet use occurs at home.”
- “17% of mobile users have shown a clerk in-store a picture of a product on their phone.”
- “Mobile CTRs up to 20x more on HopStop mobile vs. website.”
- “Don’t let crappy ads ruin your mobile site. It teaches users to ignore ads, says Greg Stuart”
- “2010-2020 is the decade of mobile: Ben Wood, Google”
- “75% of marketers say they will increase spending on mobile in 2011.”
- “1.5 billion computers, but 1.8 billion smartphones.”
- “Ben Wood, Google: Local is at the heart of user search. 1 in 5 searches have local intent. 1/3 mobile searches have local intent.”
- “Mobile is very likely the missing piece for local. Local online advertising seems antiquated at this point.”
Hyperlocal
- “Warren Webster says investing in qualified journalists will set Patch apart with hyperlocal.”
- “Rick Blair says a low-cost operations model sets Examiner.com apart from newspaper models.”
- “Wow. Examiner.com – 243 markets, 70k contributors, 3k articles/day, 25MM monthly uniques, 75MM monthly pageviews.”
- “Advertising vs. promotions: Patch seems to be leaning towards promotions.”
- “Webster: Patch hired more professional journalists in 2010 than any other media entity.”
- “Gilbert: If all you do is write for print, you are not a good journalist. Amen!”
- “Shelly Palmer: There is no such thing as hyperlocal, only hyperpersonal. I don’t care about location, I care about ME.”
Companies
- “David Krantz at AT&T Interactive: Print $3 billion and shrinking; interactive $1 billion and growing.”
- “Ouch. Chip Perry: 76% of media dollars being spent on media that are driving 8% of car sales.”
- “Heath Clarke of Local.com says self-serve subscription model didn’t make enough money.”
- “Michael Golden: NYT regional publishers disagree on whether to institute online paywall.”
- “Michael Golden says NY Times wants to be the shopping mall.”
- “Local Mazda dealership tracked 100 sales to a Facebook check-in deal over a period of a few weeks.”
- “Miller: Groupon used to be all about the transactions. Now we focus heavily on the relationships.”
- “Patch has acquired Outside.in. The two CEOs share the stage at the Borrell conference.”
- “Yahoo email login page brand takeover ad unit will be locally targeted next month. This could be powerful local branding ad.”
Lots of great thoughts there! If you missed the conference, don’t worry. We videotaped the live stream and will make it available until April 5. To see it, go to www.borrellassociates.com/loac2011/onlineticket.php.
